Alan Ball Reveals Alt Casting for True Blood: Benedict Cumberbatch? Jessica Chastain?
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True Blood creator Alan Ball recently attended Vulture Fest in Los Angeles for a screening of the True Blood pilot in honor of the show’s 10th anniversary. (We can only assume our invitation got lost in the mail…) During the screening, Alan provided live commentary and revealed some juicy behind the scenes tidbits we’ve never heard before, including other contenders for the roles of Sookie and Bill!
- The main headline coming out of the event is that Alan met with Benedict Cumberbatch for the role of Bill Compton. Keep in mind, though, this would have been 2006/2007. Pre-Sherlock, pre-Doctor Strange, really pre-anything for the ‘Batch. Bill Compton would have been his breakthrough rather than the curly-haired Baker Street detective. Can you imagine?!?
- Jessica Chastain auditioned for the role of Sookie. We now know Chastain for her Oscar-nominated roles in The Help and Zero Dark Thirty as well as films like Interstellar and Miss Sloane, but her career could have taken an entirely different trajectory.
- Anna Paquin auditioned five times before landing the role of Sookie.
- Alan also revealed that Jennifer Lawrence auditioned for the role of a “were-panther girl” in season three. I’m guessing she auditioned to play Crystal. Alan said “she was great”, but Lawrence was just shy of her 18th birthday at the time she auditioned. Since that role involved sex scenes with Ryan Kwanten’s Jason Stackhouse, it eventually went to Lindsay Pulsipher.
- Upon rewatching Lafayette’s first scene in the pilot, Alan said: “Oh, Nelsan. It breaks my heart. I’m usually not a fan of actor’s ad-libbing but he ad-libbed this entire scene and I stood back and went, okay.”
- We also got a little update on the possible True Blood musical that Nathan Barr is working on. According to Alan, it’s being “workshopped”, which means scenes are being presented to test audiences for feedback. So True Blood: The Musical could still happen!
I love hearing these little bits of information, the “what could have beens”. What sticks out the most in your mind from all these tidbits?
